Princeton Geniza Lab Newsletters

The Princeton Geniza Lab is a collaborative space devoted to making the documentary texts of the Cairo Geniza accessible to scholars and the wider public.

The Lab hosts the Princeton Geniza Project, a searchable database of Geniza texts transcribed from the originals. It also hosts research and other projects that aim to extend the available corpus of Geniza documents.

Publications List

744 Publications
Book

In September 1982, the Israeli military invaded West Beirut and Israel-allied Lebanese militiamen massacred Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Meanwhile, Israeli forces also raided the Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center and trucked its complete library to Israel. Palestinian activists and supporters protested…

ISBN
Cloth: 9780691176802; ebook: 9780691255637
Book

Caner Dagli, Ph.D. 2006

In Metaphysical Institutions, Caner K. Dagli explores the ultimate nature of the realities we call religions, cultures, civilizations, and traditions through the lens of a particular question often limited to religious studies, history, and anthropology, namely: "What is Islam?" The book is both a…

ISBN
9781438497006
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A panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Muḥammad to the birth of the modern era.

This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the…

ISBN
9780691236575
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Co-editor Davis S. Powers, Ph.D. 1979

The essays in Islamic Ecumene address the ways in which Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia and from sub-Saharan Africa to the steppes of Uzbekistan are members of a broad cultural unit. Although the Muslim…

ISBN
Cloth: 9781501772382; paper: 9781501772399
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Edited and translated by Louise Marlow, Ph.D. 1987

The 'mirror for princes' genre of literature offers advice to a ruler, or ruler-to-be, concerning the exercise of royal power and the wellbeing of the body politic. This anthology presents selections from the 'mirror literature' produced in the Islamic Early Middle Period (roughly the…

ISBN
Cloth: 9781108425650; paper: 9781108442923; ebook: 9781316999868
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Uriel Simonsohn, Ph.D. 2008.

Provides the first comprehensive study of female power in the framework of the family during a period that was crucial for the formation of Islamic civilizationGives a comprehensive consideration of the place of women in the Islamization of the early and medieval Near EastAnalyses a broad variety of literary…
ISBN
9780192871251
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Co-editor Katharina Ivanyi, Ph.D. 2012

"Humanitarian Islam is an innovative concept that has begun emerging from the traditions of Islam in Indonesia in recent years. The most important contemporary Islamic organizations in Indonesia support it. Nevertheless, it seems to be unknown beyond the Southeast Asian context, despite its global…

ISBN
Cloth: 9783506790262; ebook: 9783657790265
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Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the Scholarship category, granted by the Jewish Book Council

Living with the Law explores the marital disputes of Jews in medieval Islamic Egypt (1000-1250). Examining the rich documents of the Cairo Geniza, a unique repository of discarded paper discovered in Cairo synagogue, the book…

ISBN
Cloth: 9781512823790; ebook: 9781512823806
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Samuel Helfont, Ph.D. 2015.

The first book to use internal Ba'th Party files to examine Iraqi foreign policy and post-Cold War international historyOffers new insights into the evolution of the post-Cold War order and reveals why wars in Iraq became a central feature of global politics for the past thirty yearsHighlights previously unknown…
ISBN
9780197530153
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Co-translator and editor Nebil Husayn, Ph.D. 2016.

One of the most enduring sources of conflict among Muslims is the question of power and authority after the Prophet Muḥammad. This anthology of classical Arabic texts, presented in a new English translation, offers a comprehensive overview of the early history of the caliphate and…

ISBN
Cloth: 9781316510339; paper: 9781316649732; ebook: 9781108225267
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Cole M. Bunzel, B.A. 2008, Ph.D. 2018

An essential history of Wahhābism from its founding to the Islamic State.

In the mid-eighteenth century, a controversial Islamic movement arose in the central Arabian region of Najd that forever changed the political landscape of the Arabian Peninsula and the history of Islamic thought. Its…

ISBN
Cloth: 9780691241593; ebook: 9780691241609
Book

"This book aims to reveal Atatürk's detailed intellectual biography. The study is based on various local and foreign archive documents and period publications, especially his notebooks, the marks he made on the works he read and the notes he took, his speeches, interviews, and the books he wrote. By examining the intellectual…

ISBN
9786256538009
Book

Maha A. Ghalwash, Ph.D. 1997.

An alternative reading of the relationship between the state and smallholder peasants in mid-nineteenth-century Egypt

This book examines the rural history of Egypt during the middle years of the nineteenth century, a period that is often glossed over, or altogether forgotten. Drawing on a…

ISBN
Cloth: 9781649032775; ebook: 9781649032782
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Abdelmajid Hannoum, Ph.D. 1996.

This book considers secularism and its narrative expressions. It shows how secularism is articulated and transmitted ubiquitously within state institutions and outside of them. Abdelmajid Hannoum does this by dissecting, in a series of essays, a variety of narrative forms, interrogating modes of their…

ISBN
9781032073026
Book

 

Translator Alan Verskin, Ph.D. 2010

In 1524, a man named David Reubeni appeared in Venice, claiming to be the ambassador of a powerful Jewish kingdom deep in the heart of Arabia. In this era of fierce rivalry between great powers, voyages of fantastic discovery, and brutal conquest of new lands, people throughout the…

ISBN
Cloth: 9781503634428; paper: 9781503634435; ebook: 9781503634442
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Co-editor Jesse Ferris, Ph.D. 2008.

Table of Contents (Text in Hebrew)

Preface: A nation state in the 21st century / Yedidia Z. Stern, Shuki Friedman, Jesse FerrisAn introduction to Jewish nationalism / Hedva Ben-IsraelThe other N-word / Azer GatJewishness and democracy, Jerusalem and Athens: the need for a constitutionality of peace…
ISBN
9789655193855
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Jesse Ferris, Ph.D. 2008

כמעט אף אחד לא רצה שפקיסטאן תהיה מדינה גרעינית. אבל יום אחד זה קרה. כמעט אף אחד לא רצה שצפון קוריאה תהיה מדינה גרעינית. אבל יום אחד זה קרה. כמעט אף אחד לא רוצה שאיראן תהיה מדינה גרעינית. אבל יום אחד...יום אחד נצטרך להתחיל לדבר על האפשרות שגם זה יקרה. נצטרך להתחיל לשאול מה על ישראל לעשות אם וכאשר איראן, ואולי גם…

ISBN
9789655744637
Book

Noah Amir Arjomand, Certificate in Near Eastern Studies 2010.

News 'fixers' are translators and guides who assist foreign journalists. Sometimes key contributors to bold, original reporting and other times key facilitators of homogeneity and groupthink in the news media, they play the difficult but powerful role of broker between…

ISBN
Cloth: 9781316518007; paper: 9781009048750; ebook: 9781009059015
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Fred M. Donner, BA 1968, PhD 1975.

How did Islam’s sacred scripture, the Arabic Qurʾān, emerge from western Arabia at a time when the region was religiously fragmented and lacked a clearly established tradition of writing to render the Arabic language?

The studies in this volume, the proceedings of a scholarly conference,…

ISBN
9781614910732
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Michael Oren, Ph.D. 1986.

A thrilling literary fiction whodunit for fans of Delia Owens and Jaqueline Winspear.

World War II is raging overseas, but life remains painfully quiet on the rugged New England fishing island of Fourth Cliff. With most of its able-bodied male inhabitants away in the service, the island is now home…

ISBN
9781950539604
Book

Akel Isma'il Kahera, Ph.D. 1997.

The Place of the Mosque: Genealogies of Space, Knowledge, and Power extends Foucault’s analysis, Of Other Spaces, and the “ideological conflicts which underlie the controversies of our day [and] take place between pious descendants of time and tenacious inhabitants of space…

ISBN
9781793646873
Book

Co-editor Petra M. Sijpesteijn, Ph.D. 2004.

During the period 500–1000 CE Egypt was successively part of the Byzantine, Persian and Islamic empires. All kinds of events, developments and processes occurred that would greatly affect its history and that of the eastern Mediterranean in general. This is the first volume to map Egypt's…

ISBN
9781009170017
Book

Co-editor Petra M. Sijpesteijn, Ph.D. 2004

In this volume amulets and talismans are studied within a broader system of meaning that shapes how they were manufactured, activated and used in different networks. Text, material features and the environments in which these artifacts circulated, are studied alongside each other, resulting…

ISBN
Paper: 9789004471474; ebook: 9789004471481
Book

Co-editor İpek Kocaömer Yosmaoğlu, Ph.D. 2005

This book introduces the reader to the past and present of Jewish life in Turkey and to Turkish Jewish diaspora communities in Israel, Europe, Latin America and the United States. It surveys the history of Jews in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, examining the survival of…

ISBN
9783030877972
Book

Asad Q. Ahmed, Ph.D. 2007

Palimpsests of Themselves is an intervention in current discussions about the fate of philosophy in postclassical Islamic intellectual history. Asad Q. Ahmed uses as a case study the most advanced logic textbook of Muslim South Asia, The Ladder of the Sciences, presenting in…

ISBN
9780520344655
Book

Jessica M. Marglin, Ph.D. 2012

Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, History Category

How a nineteenth-century lawsuit over the estate of a wealthy Tunisian Jew shines new light on the history of belonging.

In the winter of 1873, Nissim Shamama, a wealthy Jew from Tunisia, died suddenly in his palazzo in…

ISBN
Cloth: 9780691235875; ebook: 9780691235882
Book

Aaron Rock-Singer, Ph.D. 2015

Salafis explicitly base their legitimacy on continuity with the Quran and the Sunna, and their distinctive practices—praying in shoes, wearing long beards and short pants, and observing gender segregation—are understood to have a similarly ancient pedigree. In this book, however, Aaron Rock-Singer draws…

ISBN
Cloth: 9780520382565; paper: 9780520382572; ebook: 9780520382589
Book

Critical edition and introduction by Michael Lecker; annotated translation by Yaara Perlman, Ph.D. 2022.

Table of contents

Preface
List of Plates
Abbreviations

Introduction
 1 Idols in Conversion Reports
 2 Mecca
 3 Medina (Yaṯrib) (§ 110–117)
 4 Idols…

ISBN
Cloth: 978-90-04-49983-6; ebook: 978-90-04-49986-7
Book

Usaama Al-Azami (Ph.D. 2018)

An original examination of the role of religious scholars in either supporting the Arab revolutions or advocating their repression. With particular focus on Egypt, al-Azami traces the public engagements and pronouncements of several prominent scholars. Considers how the engagements of counter…
ISBN
9780197613610
Book

Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law examines the main characteristics of the legal thought of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, a preeminent religious scholar jurist of Medina in the first half of the second century of the Muslim calendar (mid-eighth century CE). Numerous works in different languages…

ISBN
9780674271890
Book

Co-edited by Maria Dakake, Ph.D. 2000.

The Routledge Companion to the Qur’an offers an impressive and comprehensive overview of the formative scripture of Islam. Including a wide number of scholarly approaches to the Qur’an by both established authorities and emergent voices, the 40 chapters in this volume represent the…

ISBN
9780415709507
Keywords
Book

Karen Bauer, Ph.D. 2008

A unique resource for scholars and students of the Qur'an and its interpretations, Islamic studies, and genderAdopts a groundbreaking approach for the study of women in the Qur'anBrings historical commentaries spanning twelve centuries into dialogue with contemporary perspectivesShowcases the intellectual variety of…
ISBN
9780192842855
Book

Edited and translated Eric Ormsby, Ph.D. 1981.

A key section from a classic work of medieval Islamic learning Provides students and non-specialists with access to an Islamic philosophical treatise Notes to technical concepts and obscure passages elucidate the text Full contextual and expository introduction to the text,…
ISBN
9780198858140
Book

Co-edited by Nadav Samin, Ph.D. 2013.

Senior scholars of Islamic studies and the anthropology of Islam gather in this volume to pay tribute to one of the giants of the field, Dale F. Eickelman. In diversely arrayed, rigorous and compelling chapters, leading historians, anthropologists, and political scientists elaborate through their…

ISBN
Cloth: 9789004439528; ebook: 9789004443341
Keywords
Book

Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman, Ph.D. 2007.

Volume 5 examines the history of Judaism in the Islamic World from the rise of Islam in the early sixth century to the expulsion of Jews from Spain at the end of the fifteenth. This period witnessed radical transformations both within the Jewish community itself and in the broader contexts in…

ISBN
9780521517171
Book

Co-edited by Orit Bashkin, Ph.D. 2005.

Journeys of dislocation and return, of discovery and conquest hold a prominent place in the imagination of many cultures. Wherever an individual or community may be located, it would seem, there is always the dream of being elsewhere. This has been especially true throughout the ages for Jews,…

ISBN
9780812252958
Book

George Hatke, Ph.D. 2011.

South Arabia is one of the least known parts of the Near East. It is primarily due to its remoteness, coupled with the difficulty of access, that South Arabia remains so under-explored. In pre-Islamic times, however, it was well-connected to the rest of the world. Due to its location at the crossroads of…

ISBN
9781527564565
Book

Justin K. Stearns, Ph.D. 2007.

Demonstrating the vibrancy of an Early Modern Muslim society through a study of the natural sciences in seventeenth-century Morocco, Revealed Sciences examines how the natural sciences flourished during this period, without developing in a similar way to the natural sciences in Europe. Offering an…

ISBN
9781107065574
Book

Kathryn Babayan, Ph.D. 1993.

Household anthologies of seventeenth-century Isfahan collected everyday texts and objects, from portraits, letters, and poems to marriage contracts and talismans. With these family collections, Kathryn Babayan tells a new history of the city at the…

Book

Suleika Jaouad, B.A. 2010

A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission and, ultimately, a road trip of healing and self-discovery.

Reviews and Endorsements

“A beautiful, elegant, and heartbreaking book that provides a…

ISBN
9780399588587
Book

Milena Methodieva, Ph.D. 2010

Description

Between Empire and Nation tells the story of the transformation of the Muslim community in modern Bulgaria during a period of imperial dissolution, conflicting national and imperial enterprises, and the emergence of new national and ethnic identities. In 1878, the Ottoman empire…

ISBN
9781503613379
Book

Nebil Husayn, Ph.D. 2016

Islam's fourth caliph, Ali, can be considered one of the most revered figures in Islamic history. His nearly universal portrayal in Muslim literature as a pious authority obscures centuries of contestation and the eventual rehabilitation of his character…

ISBN
Cloth: 9781108832816; ebook: 9781108966061
Book

Abdelmajid Hannoun, Ph.D. 1996.

Under French colonial rule, the region of the Maghreb emerged as distinct from two other geographical entities that, too, are colonial inventions: the Middle East and Africa. In this book, Abdelmajid Hannoum demonstrates how the invention of the…

ISBN
Cloth: 9781108838160; paper: 9781108947763
Book

Robert D. McChesney, B.A. 1967, Ph.D. 1973.

In Central Asia, Muslim shrines have served as community centers for centuries, particularly the large urban shrines that seem, in many cases, to have served as the inspiration as well for a city’s architectural development. In Four…

Book

Leslie Peirce, Ph.D. 1988

Without the labor of the captives and slaves, the Ottoman empire could not have attained and maintained its strength in early modern times. With Anatolia as the geographic focus, Leslie Peirce searches for the voices of the unfree, drawing on archives, histories written at the time, and legal texts.